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A mount point's ancestors were unreachable whenever / was mounted - #435

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tobert merged 1 commit into
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fix/router-synthesizes-mount-ancestors
Sep 2, 2026
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A mount point's ancestors were unreachable whenever / was mounted#435
tobert merged 1 commit into
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fix/router-synthesizes-mount-ancestors

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@tobert tobert commented Sep 1, 2026

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readlink -f failing on a rooted mount was one caller meeting a router bug. ls, stat, cd, and the file tests fail the same way on the same paths:

ls /…/project           -> not found
[[ -d /…/project ]]     -> false

where /…/project/fixture is a mount and another backend covers /.

The router already knew the answer. stat, lstat, list, and path_access each carry a branch that synthesizes a directory for a path above a mount, because a mount at /a/b/c implies /a/b is a directory the same way a real mount implies its mount point's parents exist.

That branch sat on the Err arm of find_mount. Mounting / makes mount_of match every path, so find_mount always succeeds, the backend covering / is asked for /a, and its NotFound reaches the caller before the ancestor branch can run. The code was correct and unreachable in the one configuration every embedder uses — a root mount plus a deeper one.

The check now runs on the answer rather than on the routing. Only NotFound is recovered: any other error is the backend's answer about a path it owns and reaches the caller unchanged, so this cannot mask a permission failure.

A control pins the boundary — a path that is not an ancestor of any mount is still absent, so synthesizing ancestors did not make the namespace exist.

Gates: clippy -D warnings, cargo test --all (6519 passed, 0 failed), insta --check, rustdoc -D warnings.

…nted

`readlink -f` failing on a rooted mount was one caller meeting a router bug.
`ls`, `stat`, `cd` and the file tests fail the same way, on the same paths:

    ls /…/project    -> not found
    [[ -d /…/project ]]  -> false

where `/…/project/fixture` is a mount and something else covers `/`.

The router already knew the answer. `stat`, `lstat`, `list` and `path_access`
each carry an ancestor branch that synthesizes a directory for a path above a
mount, because a mount at `/a/b/c` implies `/a/b` is a directory the same way
a real mount implies its mount point's parents exist.

That branch sat on the `Err` arm of `find_mount`. Mounting `/` makes
`mount_of` match every path, so `find_mount` always succeeds, the backend
covering `/` is asked for `/a`, and its `NotFound` returns to the caller
before the ancestor branch can run. The code was correct and unreachable in
the one configuration every embedder uses -- a root mount plus a deeper one.

The check now runs on the answer rather than on the routing. Only `NotFound`
is recovered: any other error is the backend's answer about a path it owns
and reaches the caller unchanged, so this cannot mask a permission failure.

This supersedes the ancestor half of readlink's own fix. Against this commit
alone, 7 of that branch's 8 tests pass with none of its `is_structural` /
`owning_mount` code present; the 8th is containment, which is a separate
guarantee and stays there.

A control pins the boundary: a path that is not an ancestor of any mount is
still absent, so synthesizing ancestors did not make the namespace exist.
@tobert
tobert force-pushed the fix/router-synthesizes-mount-ancestors branch from 281220f to 8c1f7a0 Compare September 2, 2026 12:38
@tobert
tobert merged commit d35e0bd into main Sep 2, 2026
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@tobert tobert mentioned this pull request Sep 2, 2026
tobert added a commit that referenced this pull request Sep 2, 2026
Version bump and changelog stamp for v0.17.1, a patch release covering
six PRs merged since v0.17.0: help/kaish-tools nested-subcommand
recursion (#430), the wrapped-command allow_external_commands framing
correction (#431), a changelog correction plus a new zero-padded
date/time migration note (#432), nested verb groups for wrapped commands
(#433), mount-point ancestor navigation when a backend also covers `/`
(#435), and VfsRouter-shared path canonicalization closing a containment
leak in `readlink -f`/`realpath` (#434).

This bump also carries two documentation fixes surfaced by the
release-gate review below rather than opening a separate PR for
text-only changes: `docs/EMBEDDING.md` claimed `realpath` passes
`allow_missing_final: true` and rechecks existence, when it actually
passes `false` directly; and the canonicalize changelog entry overstated
the default implementation as containment-checked, when containment is a
property of `LocalFs`'s and `VfsRouter`'s overrides, not the shared
default.

Reviewed with kaibo (`consult`, cast `deepseek`) against the full
`v0.17.0..HEAD` diff. Verdict: no undocumented semver breaks — the two
new `canonicalize` trait methods are defaulted and every changed public
type is either `#[non_exhaustive]` or privately fielded, so the patch
framing holds. Two smaller findings from that review are real but scoped
as code changes rather than release-blocking text, so they're queued as
follow-up work rather than folded into this bump: a wrapped-command node
can silently accept a no-op `json_output` declaration instead of being
refused, and the new `canonicalize` default's symlink-hop cap has thin
test coverage.

Gates: `cargo test --all` (2231 passed), `cargo clippy --all
--all-targets -- -D warnings` (clean), `cargo insta test --check` (no
pending snapshots).
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